Different film formats exist for still photography to accommodate the needs and demands in the art of still photography. The most common small film format is the 35 mm used in common point and shoot camera. The medium film format is between 35 mm and 6 cm in height, which includes 6 cm×9 cm and 3¼″×4¼″, which is commonly referred to as 3¼×4¼. The large film format is greater than 6 cm in height, which includes 4″×5″, commonly referred to as 4×5, and 8″×10″, commonly referred to as 8×10.
Larger film sizes provide better quality and more detail images. The largest practical format for a production hand held camera is the 4×5 format because of the limitation on the portability and maneuverability of the camera. An 8×10 format camera is heavy and cannot be used as a hand held camera.
All 4×5 camera in the marketplace have either a double window rangefinder that has one viewfinder window for framing the photograph and one rangefinder window for focusing or only has a rangefinder without parallax. Single window rangefinder/coupled rangefinder parallax combination camera exists for the 3¼×4¼ format, but not for the 4×5 format because of the tighter tolerances required for the 4×5 format camera and the need for highly skilled workers in the manufacturing process, making it economically impractical to manufacture. A coupled rangefinder/parallax combination camera provides the focusing system and crop lines which permit accurate composition via the rangefinder, i.e. can adjust the crop lines in the viewfinder when adjusting the focus on the subject to take a picture. Therefore, it is easier to adjust rangefinder and cropping frame because it uses only a single window rangefinder that includes both the parallax and the rangefinder.
Therefore, there is a need for a lightweight 4×5 camera having a single window rangefinder/coupled rangefinder parallax combination.